we could be heroes
by acronymed
Summary: S4!AU. Kol and his bat and his crazy take a hostage and immediately regret it. Or, that time there was a road trip, faeries, snark, wendigos, ust, sirens and so much more. — Kol/Caroline. 3/10.
1. i, i will be king

**notes** | season 4 is ridiculous, but kol is back being logical and insane and trying to not get everyone murdered by murdering less important people and i love it.

**summary** | kol and his bat and his crazy and his family issues try to save the world. caroline is having a really bad day.

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Kol isn't crazy. He's just smart enough to make people think he is.

"Bekah," he says, around a mouthful of gore, "tell me you're not crying again."

"Nik is going to dagger you if you don't stop this Jack the Ripper business," she sniffs. Kol doesn't think sobbing over your victim is proper protocol for murder, and he's been killing people for a while so he considers himself a bit of an expert, but Bekah can't control herself once she gets going so he rolls his eyes and lets her sob into the girl's bloody throat. "Elijah's vanished; you can't leave me, too."

He drops his date and starts picking bits of flesh out of his teeth, already bored, "Calm down, woman. You'll like me better in a coffin. No more jokes about you being a strumpet."

"Kol." Rebekah's messy today — there's a smear of red along the cut of her jaw that runs back into her hair. "I'm being serious."

"I am, too," he says. "Do you honestly think I don't know what Nik's going to do? Do you honestly think that I don't _want _him to do it?"

Rebekah blinks once, twice, and the limp girl in her arms tumbles sideways into the couch cushions. "_What?_"

Kol sighs, because honestly, how is he the only one in this family with any sort of intelligence, "Mikael's getting too close, sister. Think about it: who'll be the bigger threat? Klaus, who's a hybrid, who's faster and stronger than any of us, who's evaded him for centuries, or me, the brat daggered in a box?"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"I'm sick of running, and this century is, quite frankly, a bit of a bore," Kol deadpans. "So, wake me up when things get interesting, yeah?"

"You are a _lunatic _and your supposed plan is _madness _and— is that why you've been killing so many people?" She's across the room, tugging on his sleeve suddenly, her eyes still damp. "Is that what all this business has been about?"

"Uh," Kol says, "clearly."

"Oh my God," Rebekah mutters.

Three days later, Klaus 'takes him by surprise' at dinner with a dagger to the back while Bekah complains about her crème brûlée.

"I didn't want this, Kol, but you've left me no choice," Nik says raggedly against his cheek, the sharp prick of the blade against his spine.

"Aim a little to the left or you'll just hit bone," Kol grumbles, since he's the only one with medical training that doesn't consist of ripping off faces with his teeth, "also, your cooking is abysmal."

In retrospect, Klaus probably lets him crumple into the truffle on purpose.

It isn't his best plan, true, but it works, and when Bekah wakes him up a century later, when things most certainly _have _gotten interesting, Mikael is dead and Klaus is sufficiently terrified when he walks into the living room with a smirk.

Klaus can plot with a goal in mind, can manipulate everyone around him for his one big mission, but Kol's better at it, better at thinking about the bigger picture, better at pretending Klaus scares him.

So when the Salvatores and their merry band of misfit friends decide they want to find the cure that will raise _someone who will kill them all _Kol decides he needs a plan. A few plans. Plans A through Y, most likely.

The first two don't go so well. Apparently, Denver means as much to Jeremy as it does to Kol: so, nothing. And the Bennett witch has too many friends and too much power for him to kill - and he'd tried, he really had, and he's still a bit smug about the dark bruises that had spread across her pretty throat - so he needs to regroup. To think.

More importantly though, he needs leverage.

This is why Caroline Forbes is currently waking up in his stolen car.

"Oh my God," she groans into the seat cushion, "did you really kidnap me? Like, seriously? I am in the middle of _planning senior prom._"

Kol rolls his eyes, even though she can't see him from the backseat. "You say that like it's supposed to mean something to me, darling."

"Oh, joy, more pet names," she snarls. Kol can hear her struggling to sit up despite all the vervain in her system, imagines the blood matted into the curls of her hair. He'd gotten a little carried away when he'd grabbed her — sometimes, he forgets how much fun attacking pretty girls is and she'd _fought back _which had been even better and if he remembers anything from what Nik has said to him about Caroline, it's that she's feisty and witty and a little bit cruel.

"Best get used to them. We're going to be together for a while."

"Kill me now," she deadpans, and her nails clink against the door handle. Kol casually flicks the child-locks. "_Motherfucker."_

"Such language from a lady." He swerves into oncoming traffic because driving is so boring sometimes, what with all the rules. If they get pulled over, which they probably will because Kol gets pulled over quite a bit, he'll just compel the officer. Or kill him. Maybe both.

"You drive like a lunatic and I have been in a car with an angry Stefan." She's tucked into a tiny little ball against the window, right behind him, grinding her teeth. "People are going to realize I'm missing in, like, an hour, you know that right?"

Kol pulls back into the proper lane and takes the next exit. "Well of course they will, sweetheart, that's the point."

Caroline hisses. "You are insane."

"I prefer the term diabolical."

And honestly, with everything Nik had told him, he should have expected it, when he came to a stop at some dingy little gas station and twisted to tell her to be good or he'd have to kill a lot of people.

"I prefer the term blind," she says, with a smile like a knife, and digs her thumbs into the corners of his eyes.

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Afterwards, he says, "I hope you know, these seats are Italian."

He's staring at the nasty little bloody stains lining the headrest while Caroline smirks at him from behind a vervain gag like she's hilarious. Kol growls, "I could kill you and none of your friends would be the wiser," and she straightens up a bit, but she's still giving him sassy little grins for the next two hours.

"I should have kidnapped Elena," he mutters, "she would have been much more agreeable."

Caroline puts her foot through the back of his seat and the toe of her boot digs into his tailbone. Kol turns on the radio and settles on a country station when he realizes she hates the music and wonders if he should just snap her neck.

The glare she shoots him makes him decide against it; this is just so much more fun.

"So," he says cheerfully, when Atlanta starts to roll into view, "you're probably wondering why I've taken you when we haven't even said two words to each other, aren't you?"

Caroline squints at him, a cute little furrow between her brows that reminds him of Bekah, then flops onto her side and rolls over so her back is to him.

"You are the very essence of maturity," he deadpans. "It baffles me how I didn't notice it until now."

Her arms are tied behind her, so it makes it all too easy for her to flip him off. Kol turns up the volume on the radio and drives a little slower so he can drag it out. Caroline finally shifts so she's staring at the sunroof and sighs. It's a sigh Kol knows well, one that is as patronizing as it is annoyed. It's his sigh. This may be a problem.

"Well, I'm not telling you _now," _he says, and Caroline shrugs like she doesn't really care which, well, maybe she doesn't. Hadn't Nik or Bekah made a comment that Caroline's been tortured a handful of times before? She certainly doesn't seem like she has, what with the bright, sunny disposition and the snark. Maybe she's as crazy as he is. "You'll just have to wait. I hope the suspense doesn't kill you."

Caroline's jaw has been working since she moved onto her back and he hasn't been able to figure out why. Then she spits out the gag so it presses against her chin and sizzles, and says, "I do," with complete sincerity and then Kol knows he _definitely _has a problem.

She swings upright, legs curled under her in her shorts, and the gag slips down to rest on her shirt. Dry, cracked skin heals slowly at the corners of her mouth. She says, "so tell me what the big, evil plan is, crazy pants," like she's asking him about the weather.

"Your friends are idiots," is what he starts with, which probably isn't the best opener given the flat look she levels him with, but he isn't exactly trying to be charming. "If they raise Silas trying to find that stupid bloody cure, they're going to get us all killed."

"Isn't that guy just supposed to be like, the vampire version of the Boogeyman? You know, like, don't eat that village of innocents or Silas will get you?"

Kol blinks, hard. "What in the ever loving hell is a Boogeyman?"

Caroline does that sigh again. "_Omigawd_, just get on with it."

"Anyway." Kol speeds up close beside a semi and gets a bit of a thrill in the way Caroline squeaks and moves away from the window. "Ripping off Jeremy's arms didn't work, trying to kill the witch didn't work—"

"You're an asshole for that, by the way," Caroline says, "Bonnie's got bruises and it is nowhere _near _scarf season."

"Tragic," he sneers. "My other plans failed, so plan C it is. You're close with the Salvatores and Elena, _and _my brother fancies you, so as long as I've got you hostage their search for the cure is at a standstill."

Caroline sounds only moderately horrified when she says, "until when? _Forever?"_

Kol laughs. "Don't sound so excited, love. No, not forever. See, if I can't stop them from searching permanently, then I'll have to find a way to destroy Silas instead. Understand?"

"That's… pretty sneaky," Caroline says slowly, "but how is that going to stop _everyone_. And what makes you think they won't keep at it while you're off on your bonding road trip of doom with me?"

"Elena and Bonnie wouldn't want you to come to harm," Kol says, running a light, "neither would Stefan. Elena controls Damon and Jeremy, Shane needs everyone else to get anything done, Stefan has partnered up with my sister—"

"_He what_—_"_

"—so that takes care of her. Nik is enamoured with you, so he'll quit looking, but not for long, and I may have compelled a couple of your friends to kill themselves or Jeremy should anyone try to look for the cure before I come back."

"_You what_—_"_

"So you see," Kol turns towards her, grinning wide as the car swerves and Caroline lunges for the wheel, "I've bought us some time to perhaps prevent the apocalypse."

"My hero," she deadpans, half across the center console, breathing a little wild even though she doesn't need to.

Kol smirks down at her, a shark's smile, with all his teeth, "when exactly were you planning on telling me you'd gotten your hands free?"

Caroline tenses. "Um, when I, like, maybe possibly broke your neck at the next gas station?"

Kol beams and lets her crawl into the front seat only because he knows the vervain has made her too weak to take him without the element of surprise. "We're going to get along splendidly."

Caroline pulls on her seatbelt, probably out of habit, tucks her hair neatly behind her ears, and mumbles, "why do all the raging psychopaths in my life say that? Seriously."

Kol doesn't reply, just turns off the radio, and she exhales something that sounds like _finally. _"We're going to Atlanta, in case you wanted to know."

"I didn't," she says primly, "but thanks."

"We need to see a witch—"

"It's always with the witches with you Originals—"

"—only I don't know where exactly she is."

"So we're playing Where's Waldo in Atlanta?" She raises her eyebrows at him. Kol keeps an eye on her tiny, potentially lethal hands. "Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday."

"It's like you think I care or something," he drawls, and that's about when she kicks the car door right off the frame and throws herself out after it, tucking into a rolling blur of white-blonde and denim.

Kol stares up at the sunroof, braking. "Oh, not this again."

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She doesn't make it very far — the vervain is still heavy in her blood, and she's slower than him already, so she really only makes it about halfway across a field towards a barn before he tackles her around the knees.

"Get off me," she snarls, "before I _end _you."

"With what," Kol snarks, "your eyeliner?" and promptly gets punched in the face. He jerks back a little, shakes his head, opens his eyes, and gets head butted. "Bloody fucking _hell, _where did you even learn—"

Caroline twines her leg around his hip which is distracting for exactly a second but then she's hooking her foot behind his knee and rolling them, digging her elbows up under his ribs as she sits on him.

Kol's getting hit in the head with a rock when he finally gets his bearings, reaches up, and turns the bones in her wrist into dust. Caroline bites her lip but otherwise does nothing except slither off of him like some kind of seductive, homicidal cat.

There's a long pause where she's cradling her wrist while it heals and he's wiping the blood dribbling from his temple off with his sleeve. Then, "a rock? Really?"

"I was improvising," she says sullenly.

"Next time, don't." He drags her to her feet, squints into the distance at the black speck that is the car, and sighs when he sees other black specks with red and blue flashing above them pull up. "Looks like we'll be on foot from here."

Caroline groans and gestures to her feet with the hand he doesn't have in a vice-grip. "Have you seen these boots? These are not hiking boots. These are the _exact opposite _of hiking boots."

Kol is unsympathetic. "You should have thought of that before you broke my car."

Caroline growls. Kol snorts, then rummages around in the grass for a few seconds. "What are you— is that a_ bat_?"

"Same one I used on Damon," he says fondly, resting it against his shoulder. Caroline side-eyes it as they start walking. "I quite like it."

"You are the Norman Bates of vampires," she says seriously, like that's supposed to mean something to him the way all her other pop culture references are, and Kol smiles winningly at her in response. "Oh my god, stop doing that, that is terrifying, I will _scream_—"

"When that vervain wears off, I am compelling you to shut up," he mutters, and Caroline stiffens next to him.

They don't say much the rest of the way to Atlanta.


	2. and you, you will be queen

**notes** | i love these two so much i have lost all ability to can. my precious, flawless, bratty, snarky bbs. also, chapters are going to be roughly this long here on out. the first chapter was just a prologue. also, i actually planned this thing out from start to end, so, you know, i'll actually _finish it._

also, i'm from canada and therefore know next to nothing about the states geographically (or in general, WHOOPS), so i used google maps to plot their trip. it's a magnificent bastard.

**summary** | kol and caroline go on a magical road trip and pretend they're the winchesters. in this chapter, our heroine finds herself covered in blood, at a seedy hotel, ogling a hot bartender and manhandled by a crazy person.

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Just outside Atlanta, Kol turns to her, squints at her hair, and goes, "ah. Right."

Caroline reaches up, immediately self-conscious. The wayward curl she tries to smooth out is limp and dusty, and when she looks at her hand it's flaked with dried blood.

"What," she says blankly, right before she fixes Kol with a murderous look.

Kol, the bastard, is unfazed. "We'll have to clean that up. Can't have you gallivanting around in public looking like you were assaulted, can we?"

"I _was _assaulted," Caroline seethes, stabbing a perfectly manicured nail into his chest. She thinks it probably isn't a good sign that the sight of blood welling up beneath her finger makes her nearly delirious with glee.

"Ugh." Kol rolls his eyes and breaks her wrist— _again_— with the same sort of disinterest Caroline usually has when Tyler says anything related to sports. "This is my favourite shirt, you know."

"This is my _favourite hair_," she snarls, gesturing viciously as her bones heal. Kol raises an eyebrow at her. "I need a shower."

"You do smell," Kol says pleasantly.

Caroline makes a strangled noise and tries to claw his eyes out. He breaks her arm this time, with the barest hint of pressure, and Caroline resigns herself to the fact that she is basically going to be in the kidnapped equivalent of an abusive relationship for an indefinite amount of time and stomps behind him as he tugs her towards a girl trying to get into her car.

"Kol," she warns, a little scared now. He _is _a raging sociopath, and she isn't sure she can stop him if he tries to kill anyone. "What are you doing?"

Kol side-eyes her. "We need a car, since _someone _decided to rip the bloody door off of mine and roll into the street like a nutter."

"Oh, please," Caroline sniffs, "it probably wasn't even your car."

"Touché," Kol says, and then smiles charmingly at the girl when she notices them. "Hello there, sweetheart. My girl and I are in a spot of trouble and were wondering if you'd be able to help us out?"

The girl blinks at him a couple times, dazed. Caroline doesn't blame her; all she's getting is the white teeth and the height and the forearms and his cheeky little smile and the accent_. _Caroline's actually almost jealous. Kol would be a much more tolerable person if he didn't open his mouth. And wasn't a blatant serial killer.

"Um," the girl says, and Caroline can pinpoint the exact moment she realizes that the right side of Caroline's head is matted with blood and Kol is holding a baseball bat. "_Oh my God, _are you okay?"

"I fell," Caroline mutters, since she's doing the whole abused-girlfriend thing apparently — Kol actually rubs his thumb along the back of her hand as if he's proud of her or something, _ew _— and then she's standing alone while he crowds the girl up against her car door and _looms _like some kind of ominous super villain.

"Don't scream," he says easily, and his eyes are a little feral when the girl whimpers. "Good girl. Give me the keys to your car."

The girl hands them over, staring blankly at a point just over Kol's shoulder. Kol shoots Caroline a smug little grin before pocketing them, and then he's hauling the girl against him and opening his mouth against her throat.

Caroline is suddenly faced with a problem: she can't take Kol on a good day, especially not with all the vervain running through her, and the girl, as much as Caroline hates to admit it, is as good as dead regardless of what she does. But Kol isn't paying attention to her right now; she could escape, put some distance between them, hopefully enough to lose him or throw him off track for a while. She isn't that far from Mystic Falls, not yet, and—

The girl's eyelashes flutter once, twice. Caroline can hear the fade of her heart, the time between beats getting longer and longer, and is overwhelmed with guilt as she spins on her heels and runs.

Dried grass crunches beneath her boots as she sprints across the field they'd been in. There's a thump behind her, the sound of the girl's body hitting the ground, but Caroline doesn't look back.

To be perfectly honest, she's a little scared of what she'll see.

She's been sassing Kol since she woke up because she's sick of being the damsel and Klaus would rip him in half if anything happened to her— at least, she thinks he would, Klaus is kind of insane so she isn't sure, but she thinks even if he didn't do something, Stefan would eat Kol's face or whatever he does when he's a Ripper— but she remembers what he is; an Original and a deranged psychopath who's killed a lot of people because he gets bored and does it all with a laugh. More than that though, he's _smart, _he's _so smart, _and he's going to figure out her weaknesses eventually and use them to keep her around.

Caroline has pretty good survival instincts, she thinks, especially now that she's a vampire, but if Kol starts killing entire towns to get her to stick around, she isn't going to be able to live with herself. She isn't going to be able to say no.

She takes another three steps, and then something hard slams into the soft part of her skull. There's a loud crack that rings sharp in her ears, and the back of her neck is wet, and she thinks _at this rate, I might as well just dye my hair red _right before her knees give out and she crumples.

He threw his fucking bat at her. That _asshole._

Kol scoops her up easy and props her against him with one arm around her back. He's pushing away her blood-slicked hair almost gently, which is just, like, horrifying in its own right. When she opens her eyes finally to glower at him as best she can as her scalp stitches itself back together, he sighs.

"I think I've been too lenient with you," he murmurs, with his scary face on, and she thinks of Klaus' deadly quiet voice when he's so furious he can't think of anything but murder. "I let you run off last time with minimal consequence because I needed the entertainment." Abruptly, his grip on her tightens, to the point she can hear bone splintering. "But we're on a mission now, darling. It's time to be serious."

Her head's cleared up, so she smacks his hand from her hair and jerks away from him with a growl. He picks up his bat; the edge is splintered, probably where it hit her, and he has the audacity to look amused. _Motherfuc_—

"If you try to run again, Caroline," and he purrs out her name, low and long and drawn out like some kind of song, "I'll decapitate you with my bare hands and send your head back to my brother as a gift."

Caroline clenches her jaw. Exhales once. Thinks he's bluffing, because there's no way he'd risk Klaus hunting him, no way. Sees his steely, blank, entirely _serious_ gaze. Says, "Charming. Tell me, is that how you get all the girls?"

The ice in Kol's eyes fades a little, and the corner of his mouth kicks up. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"So I know when I should kick you in the balls? Well, _duh.__"_

Kol snorts, then drags the tips of his fingers through the tacky mess coating the back of her neck. They come away red, and he makes a show of licking them clean like the maniac he is. "Hm," he says, walking past her, "just as I thought: tasty."

"I eat a lot of vegetables," she deadpans, following him and hopefully conveying an appropriate amount of misery. Kol's shoulders shake, so she thinks he might be laughing at her, which, whatever, she's hilarious, why shouldn't he be laughing.

When they get back to the car, the girl is slumped against the driver side door in a pool of blood. Caroline sucks in a rush of air through her teeth as Kol casually vanishes with the body, then reappears to frown at the blood smeared on the car.

"Bollocks."

"Bless you," she says, scrubbing at her neck. She can feel blood drying against her spine, and combined with going face down in the dirt twice_, _she definitely wants a shower.

Kol shoots her a look. It's one she knows well from Damon. It says, _Caroline, shut the fuck up, you are literally the most annoying person on the face of planet and I will kill you._

Caroline has never been very good at heeding that look. "So, Hannibal Lecter, what now?"

"I hate it when you do that," Kol mutters, before promptly vanishing again. Caroline blinks at the empty space he'd occupied a few times. Then suddenly, he's back. With a wet towel.

"I probably don't want to know where you got that, do I?" Caroline watches him scrub down the driver's door and the window, and adds, "wait, you hate it when I do what?"

Kol swipes absently at the door handle. "Make references to things I don't understand. It's bloody frustrating not being able to defend myself from what I'm sure is a barrage of witty insults on your end."

The sarcasm is dripping, it's so obvious. Caroline has half a mind to leave bloody fingerprints all over the car's hood just so he'll have more to clean up. "I feel for you. I really do. Mostly revulsion and blinding rage, of course, but you know. Those kind of give me warm feelings inside?"

Kol stares at her for an unnervingly long time, like he's debating whether she's the most amusing or infuriating thing he's ever seen. Or he's trying to figure out if she's sane. She honestly doesn't know, but she hasn't had the urge to snipe at someone this much since Damon and that was only because no one else in the room could ever match him, not really.

Then, "just get in the god forsaken car you insufferable bint."

"Be still my heart," she says, monotone, and clambers into the front seat.

Kol seems more relaxed when he finally starts driving, so Caroline decides to stay quiet and let him think she's simmered down. Calm before the storm and all that. She may not be able to fight him, or run, but she sure as hell isn't going to make this _easy _for him.

"So," she chirps, after ten minutes of driving, "where are we going?"

Kol slants her a look from under his lashes that is almost distractingly attractive. "I'm not entirely sure."

She bites back a scathing remark. "Okay."

When she turns back to the window, she starts humming. Kol pulls into the nearest motel parking lot, tells her to _behave _like she's his kid— oh, god, that is the most terrifying thought to ever come into existence, Kol _procreating_— and disappears inside for a good fifteen minutes.

Caroline stares at the tangled, bloodied mess that is her hair in the rear-view mirror and despairs.

When Kol reappears at her side of the car suddenly, she shrieks and jumps simultaneously. He gives her a smirk and a flourishing bow when he opens the door to let her out. "Did I scare you, princess?"

"You are a _nightmare_," she wheezes, hand over where her heart beat once. "If I wasn't already dead, I would be so dead right now. I may have actually died again. Seriously."

Kol rolls his eyes— Caroline gets the feeling this is going to become their thing, rolling their eyes at each other and being impossible to be around, and oh Jesus, she doesn't want to have a thing with another Original, okay, she already has the whole drinking-at-social-functions-thing with Klaus, and _her life is the worst_— and dangles a room key in front of her face like it's candy and he's got a van.

"Shower," she sighs, and snatches the key ring from him. "Oh my _God, _a _shower_."

"Given how excited you are, I'll assume they aren't a commodity at your house," Kol drawls, right before she runs off to find the room. He reappears behind her while she's fiddling with the doorknob, unnecessarily close, the lean length of him crowding into her space. "That explains the wet-dog smell."

Caroline stomps on his foot and the door swings open to reveal a seedy motel room that looks like it's right out of a porno. Brown shag carpet, puke green curtains, questionable stains on the seventies floral patterned bedding. She can't even be disgusted though because _shower_.

Kol, unfortunately, doesn't share the sentiment. "What in the ever loving hell is this? A squatter's den?"

"You must feel right at home," Caroline says brightly, and slams the bathroom door on his revolted, and now also just shy of furious, face.

The back of her cardigan has a few blood stains, but they're still wet and she thinks she might be able to get them out, so she soaks her shirt in the sink with water and soap and scrubs at it for a little before her shower. She leaves it there, hoping maybe to pull what's left of the stains out that way.

The water is lukewarm at best but shampoo feels amazing in her hair, no matter how cheap it is, and she doesn't look like she just murdered someone anymore, so she isn't going to complain.

Kol's sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, flipping through the yellow pages with an intense look on his face when she steps out of the bathroom, steam rising behind her. He glances up for a moment, looks at her, then at the wet tips of her hair, then at rivulets of water running down her chest to the neckline of her shirt, then back at the phone book like nothing's happened.

He does it all in maybe a second, tops, but Caroline's been checked out enough to know what it looks like.

"Ew," she says flatly, and drops down next to him on the bed. She runs her fingers through her bangs and flicks little droplets of water at him. "What are you looking for?"

Kol taps at a listing with his nail. "This."

Caroline squints down at the tiny print. "Bree's Bar? You want to get drunk at, like, one in the afternoon? Seriously?"

She can _feel _Kol's exasperation. "Honestly, were you dropped as a child? Several times, perhaps? In succession?"

"I'm sorry, were you saying something?" She blinks up at him innocently. Their shoulders are touching. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of me dripping water all over this phone number and address you have yet to write down."

Kol promptly shoves her off the bed without batting an eyelash.

"_Douchebag,_" Caroline snarls, staring at the ceiling. Kol makes a noise that might be a laugh.

"Terribly sorry, princess, but you'll have to speak up." Kol peers over the edge of the bed with a shit-eating grin. "I'm afraid I can't hear you from down there."

"You're the _Devil," _Caroline moans, covering her face with her hands. She doesn't want to think about the fact that whatever's in the shag carpet is now sticking to her still-damp hair. "Like, I actually can't even with how much of a dick you are."

Kol shrugs, like he gets told this so often it's basically a compliment, which given how old is he, is probably the case. "The witch I was looking for? Her name's Bree. I knew she owned a bar somewhere around here, I just didn't know what the bloody name of it was."

Caroline rolls her eyes, even though he can't see her, and says, as snootily as possible, "how very convenient for you."

Kol smirks, unfazed. "Isn't it?" Then, after a beat, he adds, almost helpfully, "you should probably shower again. God knows what's on that floor."

Caroline wonders how many babies she must have eaten in a past life to deserve being held hostage by _Kol Mikaelson_ of all people and decides _probably a lot._

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Bree's Bar is, surprisingly, not all that far from the motel. Kol is obnoxiously smug the entire drive there, because the planets had decided to align for him or _whatever, _but he doesn't say anything to her besides, "woman, if you turn on that blasted Top 40 crap _one more time, _I will not be held responsible for my actions."

Caroline smiles at him, all teeth. He's eyes her suspiciously. She turns up the volume.

"I can't believe my brother fancies you," he snarls, slamming on the brakes so hard the car jolts to a stop in the parking lot. "Bloody infuriating, annoying, bitchy little twit."

Caroline feigns shock. "Kol! You shouldn't think so lowly of yourself."

She thinks it's a testament to how worked up he is that he takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, even though he doesn't need to. Absently, she wonders if she maybe subconsciously has a death wish.

"Alright," he mutters, white knuckling the steering wheel. "I get it. I've kidnapped you, I've hurt your friends, I'm insane, I kill people, blah, blah, blah. But for God sake's, I am _trying _to prevent the fucking apocalypse here not raze the country to the ground. Could you at least _attempt _to be agreeable?"

For about five seconds, Caroline feels a bit guilty, especially when he turns to her and his eyes are so serious and honest that she almost believes _he _believes he's doing them all a favour.

Then she remember his hands around Bonnie's throat, the twisted angle of Jeremy's broken spine where he'd laid on the floor in the school hallway— and it's a damn good thing his ring still works, super hunter or not— and thinks _nothing is worth that._

"Prove it," she finally says, lifting her chin. "You prove this Silas guy actually exists and wants to kill us all and maybe, _maybe, _I'll go along with it."

She doesn't know what she'll do if Kol's right, honestly. The thought had never really crossed her mind that he could be anything other than wrong.

Kol rolls his eyes. "I'll just break your neck if I need to."

"Again with the broken neck threats," she says, while he starts to clamber out of the car. "Fetish much?"

He doesn't open the door for her this time, just scowls down at the top of her head as she slides out painfully slow, tapping his foot. She smooths out her shirt— her cardigan still has bloodstains on it and is sitting in the motel bathroom— and Kol grabs her wrist, suddenly much closer, towering over her and _damn, _the boy is _so tall._

"Try and behave," he says, tugging her along behind him. When they reach the bar doors, his hand slips down to brush the outside of her bare thigh. "If you're good, maybe I'll buy you a drink."

"Such a gentleman," she deadpans, and only tenses a little when his thumb grazes along the dimple in her lower back as he settles his arm around her. She won't cause a scene; he'll just kill everyone in the damn bar if she does. "How can I resist an offer like that?"

There's a half-smile on Kol's face, bordering on a smirk, when he murmurs, "well, I can sweeten the deal if you'd like."

Caroline is so busy being repulsed she forgets to come up with a witty comeback as they step into the bar. It's nice — clean, she notes, which is odd to think about a bar, but it's true. Wooden tabletops and bar stools, pool tables in the back corner through a massive entryway, large windows that let all the sunlight in. The bar itself spans the entire far side of the wall, with glasses hanging upside down from racks and a guy who's name is most definitely _not _Bree managing it.

It's also fairly empty, given it's late afternoon on a Tuesday. This doesn't surprise either of them. If anything, Caroline figures Kol had _planned _to come when it was almost empty, in case she decided to try and run off and he needed to murder witnesses.

She remembers the steely look on his face in the field and thinks, _nope, definitely not going to do that, like, ever again. _

The bartender— who, wow, super hot— glances over at them and stops wiping down the counter. "Hey," his smile is a little wolfish, with a hint of dimple, and he's directing it mostly her way, "what can I get for you?"

Kol is on his best behaviour for once, so instead of just threatening to eviscerate everyone in the immediate vicinity if he doesn't get answers, he squeezes her side lightly and says, "I'm actually looking for an old friend of mine from way back." Which totally isn't suspicious at all, given Kol looks like he's _maybe _nineteen. Caroline barely suppresses a snort. "I heard she owned this bar."

The bartender's eyes go dark. "Ah, Bree. Yeah, sorry man, but she— she died, a few months back. Animal attack."

Which is code for _vampire _in apparently _every _town, not just Mystic Falls. A muscle in Kol's cheek twitches. "Ah."

"Did you need her in particular for something?"

Kol's fingers are flexing against her hip. Caroline realizes he is avidly trying _not _to throw a tantrum that will put his brother to shame, and digs her elbow into his ribs discreetly.

"We actually needed to ask her something witch related," she says, blunt. The hot bartender doesn't have a heartbeat and she wasn't born yesterday.

The bartender grins at her again, tighter at the edges but also warmer than before. "I appreciate the honesty but, for all I know, you two are homicidal maniacs."

_If only you knew, _Caroline thinks helplessly, and gives Kol a pointed look. His thumb keeps rubbing a slow arc across her hip, back and forth, but she doesn't think he's realized it yet.

"I'm Kol," he finally says, roughly, and the tips of his fangs are out. "Kol Mikaelson."

"Lee." The bartender squints at him. "Bree mentioned you a couple times. Said she owed you one."

"She did."

Caroline puts on her sweetest smile, the one she usually reserves for making Tyler do awful things like spray paint vans with glitter. "We'd really appreciate the help."

The corner of Lee's mouth kicks up. "All her stuff got shipped off to her family in Tallahassee after she died. From what she told me, they still practice." He takes three glasses off the rack and sets them on the bar. "Same last name, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to find them."

Caroline grins as he pours a shot of whiskey into each glass and slides two of them over to her and Kol, who is suspiciously silent. "To Bree?"

Lee raises his glass and nods. He looks a little like Stefan, especially with the sad, brooding eyes that make it seem like he's lost a lot more than anyone should. Caroline throws back her drink so fast her eyes burn, and Kol huffs a laugh under his breath when she coughs.

"Oh, fuck you," she mutters.

"What _is_ Bree's last name?" is what Kol says to break his self-imposed silence.

Caroline and Lee stare at him. Then, she mutters, "_unbelievable" _and drinks his drink for him because _seriously._

Lee takes pity on her, writes down some information for Kol, and shoots her a friendly wink when they leave, Kol practically shoving her through the door.

"Why are we even going on this goose chase?" she grumbles, buckling herself in. Kol gives her an annoyed look, his lips thin, and slams his door harder than necessary. _Great_, good to know he's still bipolar. "I thought you wanted to stop Silas, not play Who's Witch Hunt Is It Anyways?"

He sighs, pulling out onto the street. "Just trust me, darling."

At least the pet names are back, so he can't be that angry. It probably has something to do with the fact that she'd help him out in there— strictly to keep him from burning the place to the ground, obviously.

"Ha, ha," she says flatly, "how about no?"

Kol's jaw clenches, but he doesn't turn away from the road. "Do you _want _me to snap your pretty little neck, Caroline? Because, I won't lie, the thought is awfully appealing at the moment."

Caroline stays quiet for a long beat, then, "so we're going to Florida?"

Kol's grip on the steering wheel slackens, just a bit, almost like he'd been waiting for her to snipe at him some more. Frankly, given his reputation, she's amazed he hasn't chopped her up into pieces and buried her across a desert. Actually, given his reputation, she's amazed anyone from Mystic Falls to Atlanta is still alive. "Yes."

"… have you ever been, before? To Florida, I mean."

Kol shrugs. "Once, a long time ago. Why?"

Caroline tips her forehead against the window. "What's it like?"

"I'm not sure the description I'd give you would be accurate, given how long it's been," he says, a bit quieter. "You've never—"

"I've never been _anywhere_," she snaps at him, not exactly on purpose; the conversation reminds her too much of Klaus and his stupid promises and his gifts she'd never wanted. Of all the places she wants to see, but might never get the chance to.

"That's horribly depressing," Kol says easily, sounding like it actually isn't.

Caroline mumbles, "I guess so," and sleeps the rest of the drive.

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.

She wakes up to Kol shaking her shoulder, not quite gentle— Kol would probably, like, spontaneously combust if he ever had to be gentle— and the bright white of the moon.

She yawns and rubs at her eyes. "We're here already?"

Kol blinks at her, once, twice. Shakes himself out. "I pulled over a few hours ago to call ahead — Lee gave me a phone number. You were thankfully out cold so I didn't need to worry about you trying to claw my bloody eyes out again."

He gives her a sardonic look here. Caroline hides a grin under the pretense of covering her mouth to stifle another yawn. He doesn't buy it.

"They won't let us into the house," he says simply, tapping her knee, "since we're vampires and all."

Caroline narrows her eyes at him. "They totally know you're a raging megalomaniac, don't they?"

Kol smirks, one of his eviller ones. "It may have come up."

"Ugh, you're terrible."

He gestures to the backseat with a wave of his arm. "I got us all that, didn't I?"

Caroline frowns, then twists back to stare at the mess of old books, rolled up sheets of paper, and a cardboard box that's been torn and then taped back together on one side. It smells old and dusty and maybe a bit like mould.

"I'm so glad vampires can't get asbestos poisoning."

Kol opens his mouth to say something probably biting, glances at the heap again, and nods. "Agreed."

"So, when do we have to give them back by, lest we incur the wrath of some great and evil curse?" Caroline says casually, while Kol starts driving to who the hell knows where.

He looks faintly surprised. "I forgot that behind the scathing, bitchy veneer you're actually quite clever."

It's almost a compliment, coming from him. Come to think of it, it probably _is _a compliment coming from him. Caroline shrugs. "Bonnie's kind of weird about her spell books. I figured it was a witch thing."

"Indeed." Kol's eyes cut to her, briefly, then back to the road. She thinks he might be impressed. "We've got two days but I doubt it'll take that long. I know what I'm looking for."

"Sure you do," she sighs. When he actually _stops for a red light, what is happening, _she unbuckles her seat belt and slips between the seats so she can tug one of the smaller books out. She doesn't miss the way he tenses when she moves at first, like she's going to attack.

They both know the vervain will be out of her system within the next two or three days. He hadn't given her _that _much. Caroline tries not to think about what that will mean for her, for him.

"This one seems… promising," she says, once she's settled back in. "And by promising I mean really old and probably covered in disease."

Kol laughs in the back of his throat, the kind of laugh where you don't mean to laugh at all, while she starts thumbing through the pages. Most of it is in a language she doesn't understand— she's been acing French and Spanish since the ninth grade, but they're pretty similar and this looks more Scandinavian than anything— but the drawings help.

"I doubt you can read any of that," Kol drawls, and the car slows to a stop in front of a much nicer looking motel than the last one they'd been in. She remembers her cardigan, abandoned in the sink, and figures she'll need to buy a jacket or something.

Caroline rolls her eyes at him. It's beginning to feel like her default reaction to anything he does. "Oh, and _you _can?"

Kol gives her a long look that makes her skin crawl. "Sweetheart, I'm a thousand years old. I probably helped _invent _whatever language that is."

"Oh," Caroline says, "right."

Kol shakes his head. "You know the drill. I'll be back; you be good."

"Try to get a room that a hooker hasn't died in recently," she offers. His mouth twitches, as if he maybe wants to smile, and with a vague sense of horror she realizes _they're getting along._

She'll just have to be meaner when he comes back out. She can do that. She's been a mean girl since she was, like, five for God sake's.

Except when he comes back out he's all smiles and shady comments as they move everything out of the car, and Caroline's _this close _to thinking maybe he'd snapped and killed everyone in the damn motel and this is his post-massacre glow, but then he opens the door to their room and Caroline is like, "_Oh."_

There's two beds, with nice, soft looking pillows and pretty blue sheets. The couch is sleek and black, there's a kitchenette, the bathroom looks like porcelain _heaven _and the room itself is maybe the size of the ground floor of Elena's house.

And there are blood bags. So many blood bags. Caroline doesn't realize how hungry she is until she's practically tearing one in half and getting blood all over her chin. Kol sucks at his, watching her thoughtfully, his eyes darker now that they're inside, and he swipes at a red droplet sliding down her neck with his thumb almost absently.

"I hate these things," he says, lips twisting into a sneer.

"You're an _angel_," is what she says back, wiping messily at her mouth with sticky fingers. She'd be embarrassed but it's Kol so, whatever.

Kol grins crookedly at her, which is disarming. "You look like you've managed to miss your mouth completely, princess."

She bites her lip, shrugs, and vanishes into the bathroom to wash up. When she comes back out, he's unrolling some of the papers across the floor and scowling at them. Caroline picks out her book from the pile of mysterious, probably lethal things sitting by the door and curls up on the far end of the couch.

It's quiet, save for the sound of her flipping pages or Kol grumbling to himself. She isn't sure what he's looking for, but it's not like she can help. Or even wants to.

Suddenly, Kol's leaning over the arm of the couch, at her shoulder, saying, "you would pick the picture book."

"Says the guy staring at nothing but _maps," _she deadpans, and snaps the book shut. "Can I help you, Ye Of The Personal Space Intrusion?"

Kol's eyebrows do a steady climb up to his hairline. "What?"

Caroline breathes through her nose. "What do you _want, _dumbass?"

"Oh, I was just going to tell you we'll be heading to New Orleans in the morning."

Caroline stares at him. "And you couldn't do that without _breathing down my neck_?"

Kol pointedly stares at her throat. "What can I say? It's a lovely neck."

"I will cut you with this book," she growls. "And we all know paper cuts _are the worst_."

Kol looks at her like she's an adorable, grumpy cat he wants to pet and placate just to keep her happy, which is a disturbing thought— that is: Kol, with a _pet_— so she hisses at him. This just seems to entertain him even more.

"Here," he's across the room suddenly, tossing a book her way. Caroline fumbles to catch it, even with her vampire reflexes, considering he'd launched it _like a bullet _at her. "Read that. I'm going to shower."

"Yes, your majesty," she says dryly.

Kol leers. "Now you're catching on."

She reads for a good twenty minutes, because, thankfully, this book is in English, but is unfortunately lacking in photos. There's a lot of references to things she doesn't understand, witch cultures and practices she doesn't even want to guess at, and she wishes she could show these to Bonnie, imagines how happy she'd be to see them.

Thinking about Bonnie brings back some of her earlier anger with Kol. Where it'd gone, she doesn't know, doesn't really want to think about, to be honest, but it flickers now somewhere deep within her, just enough.

The first section is on Silas and, surprisingly, also says he'll bring about the _end of days _which was just a fancy way of saying _everyone dies, _but it's one book and Kol had probably thrown it at her for the express purpose of her reading that so she'd be on his side. She has doubts.

He smells like mint and generic soap when he gets out of the shower — she can't help noticing, she has vampire senses, it's a thing — and he slinks down onto the couch, right up against her, so she's damp from thigh to shoulder.

He's trying to get a rise out of her, so she ignores him. After a minute, he leans over to brush his mouth across her ear. _Asshole. _"Is there anything about using magic against Silas in there?"

It's an oddly specific question, she notes, tracing her fingers across the big, looping handwriting. "There's some stuff about him, but you probably already knew that. I'm, like, still a skeptic so don't get your hopes up, but the legends apparently say there isn't a witch alive who can beat him."

"Ah, but you see," Kol murmurs, still very close, catching her hand; his thumb nail grazes along the paper thin skin of her wrist. Caroline leans back across the arm of the couch to pull away from him and glares. "I wasn't asking you about witch magic specifically, now, was I?"

The glare softens into a confused frown. "Are you drunk?"

And that's how they end up looking for a faerie court in New Orleans.


	3. and the guns, shot above our heads

**notes** | au, as the headstone is a key part of raising silas and not just payment for joe from glee. i feel like my kol/rebekah boner is very obvious this chapter. never sorry.

also, about the timeline of this fic: kol has gone after bonnie and jeremy, but not in quite the same context as on the show and klaus has still run tyler out of town. i'll go into more detail on this when we're back in care-bear's pov.

**summary** | in this chapter, our anti-hero deals with a clingy ex-girlfriend, faeries and, as per usual, sarcasm.

.

.

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This is how Kol remembers New Orleans:

He was there the day Nik decided to build a city. Bekah had sent him a letter begging him to come visit, that she missed causing trouble with him and Elijah never let her do anything fun and Nik was too busy trying to find the Petrova doppleganger or Katerina or whoever to pay attention to her and _oh, Kol, won't you please save me from boredom before I go mental?_

So Kol ended up in the middle of bloody nowhere, hungry and covered in dust, at some stupid fort called St. Jean, watching Klaus either charm or compel settlers into helping him because he wanted somewhere to party. Or something.

"Is he drunk," Kol said, leaning over Rebekah's shoulder as she braided flowers into another girl's ink-dark hair. The girl startled easy apparently, because she jumped and unwound a good chunk of Rebekah's work. "Oops."

"_Kol," _Rebekah seethed, in a voice that reminded him none-too-fondly of their mother. She tipped her head back, the lines in her face softening as she stared at him. "You came."

"You would have sent me a thousand more letters if I hadn't," he said dryly, settling down next to her. It was hot and the sun caught in Rebekah's long, complicated curls as she turned back to watch Nik. "Is he really serious?"

"Quite." She frowned. "I don't know why."

"It's Niklaus," Kol drawled, as Rebekah's friend finally looked up from the grass and caught his eye. He smiled at her, slow, and thought about his teeth in the pale curve of her throat. "Since when does anything he do make sense?"

"You realize I can hear you," Nik called to them, with his back still turned. Bekah snorted, a small little curve to her lips, and Kol rolled his eyes.

Rebekah tapped on the back of his hand with her nail. "How long will you stay for?"

Kol shrugged, because he hadn't really thought about it. "Until Nik burns this whole place to the ground during one of his tantrums?"

"You know," Nik was suddenly looming over them, one of his favourite things to do as of late Kol noticed, folding his arms, "manual labour could do that obnoxious personality of yours some good, Kol."

Kol squinted up at him. "Now I _know _you're drunk."

Needless to say, he ended up helping, and when the witches came, he left with them, because Niklaus' city of lights and parties wasn't nearly as fun as he'd thought it be, at least not after a decade, and Rebekah very nearly cried but he wasn't the one who'd promised _always and forever _now was he?

"It's not like I'm _dying_," he said, as Rebekah sniffled into his shirt. "Bekah, you cry too much."

"Promise you'll come back soon," she mumbled, and she sounded scared, maybe. He understood a little; Nik was off balanced, had been ever since they'd turned, what with running from Mikael and being a hybrid and the doppelganger situation, and his moods swung from how he'd been before, when they'd been human, to violent and murderous and cruel.

Kol was running, if he was being honest. If he stayed he was going to end up in a box like Finn and Bekah was the only one who didn't seem to know it.

He flicked her in the forehead when he stepped back, asked, "why don't you come see me, next time?" like he wasn't trying to think of ways to get her away from their brother and Mikael and the whole mess that was their family. "I'll show you a real party."

She smiled, said yes, and he didn't see her for almost two hundred years.

That New Orleans, the one that had started as a pile of wood and Nik bossing him around and Bekah with flowers in her hair, and then turned into a city of bright lights and his sister laughing against his cheek, is not the one Kol is currently standing in.

"What the hell," he says, when someone drapes a string of beads around his neck for what has to be at least the fifth time. "Why do they keep trying to give me this shit jewellery?"

Behind him, Caroline deadpans, "it brings out your eyes."

Kol honestly doesn't know why he expected to get a straight answer out of her and pawns the necklace off on the next girl who tries to moon after him. Someone bumps into him, and he almost loses his grip on Caroline's hand. She's tried to disappear into the crowd at least three times now, and the fact that they're in public is the only thing that's kept him from snapping her neck. It'd be infinitely less aggravating, he's sure, but he doesn't really want to have Nik find out where he is so soon because somewhere a news headline ends up reading:_ Guy Lugs Dead Girl Around Like a Bag of Potatoes at Mardia Gras. _

So, instead, he's resorted to keeping a tight grip on her. It's not the worst thing he's ever done, so he isn't complaining.

_She _is, though.

"Ugh," Caroline mutters, when he drags her to a booth selling trinkets and squints down the mouth of the closest alley. "Is the hand holding _really _necessary? You're sweaty."

He barely blinks. "Would you prefer a leash?"

Her nails bite into the back of his hand, where their fingers lock together. "They would never find your body."

"Coincidentally," Kol says, shaking his head — no luck, _again, _god he hates faeries and their ridiculous hidden courts — "they'll never find _yours _if you don't stop bitching every five seconds."

Caroline scoffs, and he doesn't have to look at her to know she's rolling her eyes. She's always rolling her eyes at him. He's tempted to poke them out, sometimes. "You shouldn't have left your bat back in the hotel room; you aren't nearly as terrifying without it."

_Liar, _he thinks, right before he drags them into the alley and pins her to a wall by her throat. He's felt her shake around him, the minute little tremors in her hands that she fists in her clothes as she snarks at him. He's seen her stiffen when he moves too fast near her. He knows she's scared. He also knows she hates that she is.

And she's just so goddamn_ infuriating_.

"Caroline, listen," he slides up the length of her and leans in close, palm smoothing down to flatten across her stomach, his other hand dropping to her hip. Anyone who passes by could mistake them for lovers, which is the point, so long as they don't see her wide eyes. "We're going to be dealing with some very loathsome creatures soon. They're conniving and manipulative and ruthless and they quite enjoy making people squirm."

"Sounds familiar," Caroline mumbles, then bites her lip.

"Charming," he says flatly. "My point is, you can't be running your mouth while we're around them. So you're going to be a good girl and shut up and show me some respect and let me do all the talking and, if you behave, _maybe _I won't compel you once all that vervain is out of your system. Alright?"

Caroline stares at him for a long beat, then goes, "I'd trust _Damon Salvatore _sooner than I'd believe anything you're telling me, you know that right?"

Kol sighs, because his life is so very difficult sometimes. "It never hurts to try."

And right when he's considering actually snapping her pretty neck like a twig and hiding her body somewhere while he gets the faeries sorted, someone taps him on the shoulder and asks, "did I hear someone say Damon Salvatore?"

Kol blinks at Caroline. She blinks back. He turns slowly while she pries at his fingers, muttering about all the violent men in her life. A girl smiles at him with a hint of fang. "Sorry; I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but he's an ex-boyfriend."

He thinks Caroline might say something like _Damon the vampire gigolo strikes again _but he's too busy trying to gauge if he needs to kill this girl or not. She's got red hair and sad eyes and she looks a little familiar, he just doesn't know why.

"You are?"

"Charlotte," she says, face shuttering when Caroline stiffens behind him ever so slightly. "What?"

"Nothing," Caroline chokes out, and she sounds somewhere between shocked and curious, her nails dragging across his knuckles.

"While this is all very fascinating," Kol drawls, with what he hopes is the appropriate amount of sarcasm, because he really doesn't have time for any of this right now, he's got an immortal lunatic — who is, for once, not directly related to him — to stop, "we really need to be going."

He's leaning in to compel her to either forget she ever saw them or, if he's being realistic, not to scream while he decapitates her (if there's one thing Nik taught him it was to never leave loose ends) when she puts one small, pale hand on his chest and says, "you're looking for the fey, aren't you?"

Kol glares at her. "Just how long were you eavesdropping?"

She shrugs, half-smiles again in a tired, brittle sort of way. "I was bored."

Caroline stops clawing at him. "Wait so faeries are, like, actually a thing?"

For once, it's Kol's turn to roll his eyes. "Vampires, werewolves, witches, warlocks, doppelgangers and even bloody _hybrids _show up in your little hick town and you have a problem believing in faeries? _Really?_"

"Sorry, I seem to have a hard time believing people when the only things that ever come out of their mouths are _lies."_

Charlotte stares at them like they're either insane or highly entertaining. Kol isn't sure how he feels about this. "I've counted every brick in this city," she tells them, shifting from foot to foot. He gets the impression the reason behind that statement is a long, painful story he really doesn't care to hear about. "I know where it is."

"Show me," he says, automatic.

"_Please_," Caroline adds, kicking him in the shin. He squeezes her side until a bone pops. "_Douchebag."_

Kol smiles winningly at her. "Now, Caroline, Charlotte's done nothing to deserve such an insult. You should apologize."

Caroline makes a loud, frustrated noise that ends in an almost-scream and tries to punch him. He catches her fist, digs his thumb into the pale blue vein in her wrist. "Remember what I said about behaving?"

"Remember what I said about killing yourself?"

Charlotte giggles, smiling into her hands, and tilts her head towards the other end of the alley. "When you two are done, follow me."

Caroline stops trying to scratch his eyes out — it's a little disturbing how fond she is of going for his face — when he sets the sharp edge of his teeth against the paper thin skin of her inner arm and bites down hard enough to draw blood. She doesn't say anything, just steps away from him while the wound stitches itself back together neatly and scowls.

Kol takes her hand again, fitting their palms together, with enough pressure that the bones grate, marrow to marrow, and trails the bright red of Charlotte's coat around a corner and back onto a less crowded street that reeks of alcohol and sweat.

It's rather convenient, that she'd overhear them and know what they're looking for. That she would want to help anyone who knows _Damon Salvatore, _of all people. Kol isn't buying it.

Behind him, Caroline murmurs, "don't trust her."

At first, he wonders _what brought that on_ but Caroline seems to know something he doesn't, so he nods to let her know he's listening. He's been thinking the exact same thing, anyway. It's good that, for once, they're on the same side.

Ahead of them, Charlotte weaves through people with a grace and confidence he wouldn't have expected from her and it's yet another reason for him to be on guard.

"When I kill her," he says out of the corner of his mouth, low enough that it's barely audible over the click of heels on the pavement, "do promise me you won't scream too loudly. We're trying to be inconspicuous here."

Caroline, in reply, steps on the back of his shoe. Twit.

Charlotte turns again and Kol stops on the corner. He checks the cross-street; he has vague memories of walking this same road with Nik and Bekah after a night of partying, just before they'd left for London. He's pretty sure he knows where they're going.

"Kol," Caroline hisses, shaking his hand, "that hobo is totally staring at us."

"Of course he is," Kol says, without looking, squinting down the row of buildings to see if Charlotte is waiting for them. She isn't. "Oh, hell."

Caroline squeezes his wrist. "What, did you lose her?"

"Apparently."

"Way to go."

Kol briefly entertains the idea of getting her a muzzle. "You were the one who was all _don't trust her, _why are you complaining?"

It's around then that Charlotte reappears in front of him, frowning slightly. Caroline jumps, jerking his hand, and makes a sound like a squeak. Kol stares, unfazed. "It's going to take more than that to scare an Original, sweetheart."

He watches her face to see if she reacts, but Charlotte only blinks once, twice. Strange. "You stopped following me."

"I'm not an idiot," he says hotly, while Caroline goes _I beg to differ_ under her breath like she isn't right behind him and he can't hear her. "You've got five seconds to tell me why we're going to the cemetery and then I'm ripping your head off."

Charlotte visibly swallows, like she's finally scared, and Kol smirks his cruellest smirk at her, the one Bekah used to say could scare even the gods, because _good_. "Don't you mean _or?_"

"No," Kol says, and lets go of Caroline's hand while she starts moving back to give him space; for a moment, the thought _she won't run _flickers in the back of his head, "I don't."

"The entrance to the court," Charlotte exhales in a rush, glancing between his hands and the needle-sharp points of his teeth, "it's in the cemetery. I _told _you I would take you there, didn't I?"

"You didn't say _why _though." Caroline is using what he's assuming is her nasty, uptight, Klaus voice. It's rather grating. "I know about Damon and the sire-bond and how long you waited for his asshole self. Why the hell would you do us any favours?"

Charlotte's expression glazes over, distant, nostalgic. "Because he did me one."

Caroline actually _screeches_. She's trying to get by him now, so Kol tucks her against him with an arm around her shoulders. His palm flattens against the hard slope of her hip. She looks like she wants to shake Charlotte, or maybe slap her. "He did you a _favour? _He had you count every brick in the city to keep you off his back!"

"He didn't know the extent of the bond," Charlotte murmurs, then eyes Caroline, oddly thoughtful. "What did he do to you?"

"Nothing," Caroline snarls, which sounds like a very big _something _and now Kol is definitely paying attention to the conversation. "He's a liar and a manipulative jerk and a dick— and— and where the hell is this damn faerie court?"

"Oh," Kol says, as Charlotte smiles daintily and continues leading them towards the graveyard, "_now _you trust her not to try and kill us."

"Shut up," Caroline mumbles, shifting against him. Kol curls his hand against the small of her back, fingers brushing the bumps in her spine. "You can take her, if she tries anything."

This is true, Kol concedes, and turns the corner.

The streets are empty, which would be strange except he's seen what magic can do, especially fey magic. Lights flicker as they pass under them, the shadows cast across the pavement flitting in and out of sight. Charlotte stands just beyond an iron gate, at a large tombstone that seems distorted when Kol tries to look directly at it.

Next to him, Caroline inhales. "What?"

Charlotte's mouth quirks at the edges when Kol raises an eyebrow at her as they approach, close-lipped, strained. "This is as far as I go."

Caroline squints at the tombstone and breaks away from him to toe at the dirt with her boot. Half her foot disappears into nothingness, the ground around it rippling outwards; a broken illusion. She yanks her leg back. "I repeat: _what?_"

"Magic," Charlotte says, whisper soft.

"Faeries," Kol drawls. "Can't imagine what they do when some poor bastard falls in there."

"Can't?" Charlotte muses, "or won't?"

"Little bit of both, really."

Caroline slowly lets her foot disappear again, that furrow that reminds him of Bekah between her brows. "We're going to die."

"Well," Kol muses, the muscles in his shoulders stretching taut as he hunches, watching the nervous flicks of Charlotte's hands against her ribs, "one of us is."

Caroline glances over her shoulder in time to see him rip Charlotte's heart from her chest. The noise she makes catches in her throat, somewhere between a shriek and a whine. _Ah, good, _Kol thinks, with blood up to his elbow and a lithe body at his feet, _she's scared._

"Are you serious?" Her jaw is tight. "Was that really necessary?"

"I warned you." At her disbelieving look, he shrugs. "She became a liability the moment she stopped being useful." He squints when she shivers. "Can't have any loose ends lying about while my brother is hunting us, now can I?"

Caroline startles, like she hadn't thought of that, which is strange. She knows the depth of his brother's affections and she isn't daft, surely she must have expected it. He wonders.

She recovers quickly enough, though. "You couldn't have just like, I don't know, Vulcan mind melded her?" At his blank stare, she grinds her teeth. "Compel. You could have compelled her."

Kol rolls his eyes, nudging Charlotte with the toe of his shoe. Her head lolls, eyes wide and glossy. Caroline flinches. "Nik would have caught on to that in a second. Don't tell me dead bodies scare you?" His voice drops, like he's telling a secret. "You should be used to them by now, what with the Salvatores and my siblings running amuck in Mystic Falls."

"Thanks for the reminder, Bundy," she snipes, nose in the air, skin almost marble white in the sun. It's another pop culture reference he isn't meant to understand, he's sure. "Now what?"

Kol glances between her and the bright spill of Charlotte's hair. Grins.

Caroline's arms windmill when the body hurls past her and into the grave, the arches of her boots digging into the edge of the hole as she throws all her weight forward to balance, bending at the waist. Kol snickers. She launches a tombstone at him. "What is your _damage?"_

"I needed entertainment." He sidesteps, and the marker splits into chunks of rock against the tree behind him. A bit of bark burrows its way into the side of his neck. He picks it out, impressed. "Oh, good shot."

She doesn't realize he's right next to her until he's gripping her forearm and smiling with all his teeth. "Whatever terrifying thing you're thinking of doing right now? Don't."

"Come now, darling, don't you ever want to live a little dangerously?"

She might say something like, "have you _been _to Mystic Falls" but he doesn't quite catch it, the wind rushing in a howl up around them when he jumps.

.

.

.

"Oh my _God," _Caroline says, face down on his chest. Bits of Kol's spine are fusing back together slowly so he can't move, and two of his ribs are poking through his shirt. He pushes on them until they slide and start to heal on their own. "Oh my God, you are a _dumbass. _How are we going to get back out?"

"The faeries will handle that for us," he grunts, catching a whiff of strawberry shampoo.

"Assuming there _are _faeries, and this isn't just some death trap Charlotte set for us," Caroline grumbles, swatting at his thigh. Kol can feel the places where she's all softness, the length of her settled against him, the pressure of her knees cradling his pelvis. "If we get killed, I'm going to murder you."

He snorts. "I'm going to assume you're fine given you're back to whining and are using me as a cushion."

He can't really see her; there's a faint light behind them, but that's it, and she's just shades of black in the dark. He feels her push herself up on her elbows, their clothes rustling together, and assumes she's glaring at him. "It's your own fault for jumping into the abyss like a maniac."

Kol glowers, estimates where her head is roughly, and reaches up so he can yank on her hair. "Terribly sorry. My hand slipped."

"_Upwards_?" she hisses, and manages to drag her nails down the side of his face before he sits up and she tumbles off of his lap in what he's sure is the most dignified way possible. "Ugh, why couldn't _Elijah _have kidnapped me?"

Kol sniffs. "Because he's the moral brother, not the smart one."

"Your broken everything beg to differ on the smart thing, oh wise one."

"Be glad it's considered impolite to kill on fey grounds, otherwise I'd be snapping—"

"My neck? Yes, I know, your threats are so imaginative and original, please, _tell me more_—"

"I swear to _God_, Caroline—"

"_Dead ones," _a voice lilts, high and feminine and sweet. "_We've been waiting for you._"

"Oh, awesome," Caroline says on a breath, so he knows she's worried, "ominous voices, that's comforting, really."

Kol follows the tremor in her voice and reaches out for her. His hand grazes the cold skin of her elbow. "Caroline, calm down."

"I am calm," she shrills, tense beneath his palm, and then suddenly reaches up to grab his fingers when the room floods with light. His knuckles crack in her grip. "_Omigawd_."

The room isn't a room, it seems, but a cave, all dirt walls and bones scattered on the floor; crushed skulls and splintered rib cages crunching like rocks beneath their feet. Moss grows in damp, deep crevices. There are spider webs in the loose curls of Caroline's hair. Charlotte's body is a crumple of red waves and pooling fabric in the corner, her spine curving over her legs.

Kol tugs Caroline against his side to distract her. He can't have her falling apart because of a few skeletons. The last thing he needs is a mess of a teenage girl walking into a faerie court with him; they'd tear her apart in a minute.

"Ease up there, grabby," she snaps, trying to shrug him off, even as he's already hauling her down a tunnel lined with torches, the only other way to go besides up. Kol doesn't say anything, just walks to the first split in the tunnel and remembers the stories the witches used to tell him of little girls and boys getting lost in fey mazes and never coming back out. "What?"

"Quiet." There's a faint hum, music perhaps, but he can't tell the direction. "Give me a minute."

He stares at the dirt wall in front of them for a long time, at the bugs crawling in and out of holes, and then finally, _finally, _there's a faint flicker to his left, just barely in his line of sight. When he turns, it's gone, but he knows the way.

"C'mon."

Caroline stumbles after him, strangely quiet, only grumbling when she trips over a rock or her boot catches on something. The deeper they go, the more nature seems to pervade the tunnel. Flowers bloom in small patches, every colour imaginable. Vines tangle across the walls in snarled, ropy twists. Roots arch up from the earth. Some are thick like trunk trunks; others are thin and knotted together, snapping and crackling as they walk.

Caroline says nothing about the abrupt changes; Kol suspects the silence won't last long.

At the third intersection they comes across, she says: "So faeries, huh?"

He catches the slope of a wing when he glances over his shoulder at her and keeps going straight. He thinks she's aiming for casual but her voice breaks at the end, clearly nervous. "Yes."

"What do they look like?"

Kol frowns. "I don't know. Like faeries."

Caroline scoffs. "How do you not know what they look like? Aren't you like some kind of all knowing supernatural encyclopaedia?"

The music's stopped by now, and the tunnels are silent. They haven't heard anything since the second turn and, if Kol's being serious, it's starting to set his teeth on edge. "What on earth gave you that idea?"

"You're a thousand years old," she says wryly. "I think that speaks for itself."

Kol doesn't reply, just rolls his eyes and knows she can tell he's doing it by the way she huffs and steps on the back of his shoe. It's like he's dealing with a six-year-old sometimes. A six-year-old Rebekah, more specifically. He definitely doesn't miss _those _years.

A wall crumbles nearby, and there's a shrieking laugh that borders on maniacal. Caroline presses closer to him, whispers, "I think I saw a horror movie like this, once."

"Are you _still _talking?" But it is rather unsettling.

At the fifth junction, he can't see the wings he's been following. For a long beat, he stares at the wall in front of them, scowling. Caroline shakes his arm suddenly, hissing, "what the hell was that?!"

Kol tilts his head back. "What are you blathering about?"

Caroline nearly dislocates his shoulder, she tugs him so hard. "I thought I heard something behind us, so I looked and, like, there was nothing there, big surprise, we're basically in Friday the Thirteenth so I don't know what I was expecting—"

"Would you _get to the bloody point—_"

"But when I turned back, like, I don't know, I saw a flash in front of us and this twiggy little bug near your head but then it was just gone and am I going crazy? Is this what a psychotic break feels like?"

Kol stares at her. Turns slowly back towards the wall, and sure enough, for just a split second, he sees stairs and the fey he'd been following. He grins. "Caroline, I could _kiss_ you."

"Oh, god, please don't," she starts, but then they're through the wall and she breaks off abruptly, exhaling as they climb a grand set of stairs carved out of marble, marred with smears of dirt and grass, her boots clicking with every step. "Um."

Kol pauses, six stairs from the top, music and laughter above them, and turns. He puts both hands on her shoulders and looks her straight in the eye. "I am about to tell you some very important things, and by important I mean they'll keep you alive down here, so you need to listen to me, alright?"

She nods once, the blue of her eyes bright even in the dim lighting. Curls her fingers around his wrists almost absently. Kol slips in close, his voice dropping to barely a whisper, the pad of her thumb against the inside of his arm a strange, foreign thing.

"One," he starts, "do not eat or drink _anything_ in there, offered or not. In fact, just don't put anything near your mouth at all. Faeries are a sneaky lot; they'll find loopholes, trust me. Two, let me do all the talking. It'll be better if an Original vampire offends them instead of a baby one." She cracks a smile here, doesn't deny it, which, well, fine then. "And finally, don't wander off. God knows what'll happen to you if you do."

"Great," she says shakily, still close enough that a puff of air caresses his cheek, "this isn't terrifying at all."

Kol tips his chin so they're closer to eye-level — she's short, he's never noticed that before — and half-smiles, the corner of his mouth kicking upwards. "Don't worry so much. You've been dealing with my brother's advances for how long now? You'll do fine."

She huffs a laugh, just a short little burst of sound that makes its way out of her, and glances up the stairs. Some of the life is back in her face; no longer drawn with fear, she looks so young. "Alright. Let's do this."

He's almost tempted to ruffle her hair, like he used to do to Bekah. He settles for squeezing her palm. "Good girl."

Caroline huffs, hands sliding off his wrists in one graceful movement, like she'd never been touching him at all. "Watch it, buddy; I'm not your pet."

Kol half-turns and goes up a step. It puts her head level with his bicep. He squints down his nose at her. "Of course you aren't," he deadpans, "a pet would be more well behaved."

"And less likely to try and kill you," she says without missing a beat, with a sharp grin that exposes the tips of her fangs. His stomach clenches. "We going to stand here all day, or what?"

"By all means, darling," he says. He bows low, arm swept out from his side. "After you."

She snorts. "Always a gentleman."

To say she isn't ready for a faerie court is an understatement. At the top of the stairs she freezes, shoulders tense, all white blonde curls and clenched fingers. Kol braces himself against the noise, the scent of blood and alcohol and magic mixing together and buzzing in his gut. It's a tempting, tempting smell, the sort of thing that could drive a baby vampire mad.

"Um," she half-snarls, grimacing. "Fuck."

The court is just as busy and chaotic as the last time he visited. Tables laid out with piles of food, wrapped in flowers. Pointy eared, needle-toothed, shiny-eyed fey drinking, laughing, dancing with the faint glow of magic at their fingertips as they spin. Kol can see the throne and the wide berth it's being given in the center of the room, carved from bone and bark, vines coiled around the legs and creeping up the sides.

There's a vampire he knew once, at the side of the room, by a long bench wreathed in brambles, pressing his fangs into his wrist and sucking with a manic look on his face. Caroline sees him too; the sound her jaw makes when she presses her lips together is somewhere between a crack and pop.

He curls his palm around her wrist tight enough that her bones bend. "Breathe, darling."

Caroline sucks in a breath through her teeth, closes her eyes, and exhales. Her wrist twists in his hand, her fingers pressing against his pulse point. "This is intense."

"That's one way of putting it," he drawls, but he eases his grip off her slowly, in case she snaps. He knows about the strength of her control, Nik had never shut up about it. It's one of the only reasons he'd brought her along on this stupid errand; she can take it. "If I'd known all it'd take to get you riled up was some cheap liquor and a pint of blood—"

"Finish that sentence," she says out of the corner of her mouth, shifting towards him as a fey twirls past, red wings fanning out behind it, "and only one of us is walking out of here with all our limbs."

"I love it when you talk dirty," he deadpans, guiding her through the mess of bodies. There's a water imp he fought with once dancing near him, her hair a silver whip as she moves in quick, erratic movements. It snaps against his arm, leave a wet streak in its wake. "Remember what I said."

Caroline stares at him, then makes a point of pressing her lips together so tightly they turn white. He laughs.

The first step he takes into the empty space surrounding the throne isn't painful, like it had been for him his first time. He pulls Caroline through quickly and puts an arm around her shoulders to keep her steady while she swallows a scream. Afterwards, she squints up at him and hisses, "_faeries._"

"Right?" he says, and then a sharp pull of magic drags them away from each other and turns them around.

"_Dead ones," _the queen lilts, black eyes narrowed at him, pale skin tinting green in annoyance, "_you certainly took your time_."_  
_

"Forgive us," Kol says, bordering on sardonic, "some of us were a bit skeptical when we first got in."

Caroline looks like she maybe wants to kick him. The queen, in all her violet-haired, long-limbed glory, looks a bit like she wants to as well. Excellent.

"_You have come about the end of days," _she says, in lieu of setting him on fire. This is promising. "_About Silas."__  
_

"Some idiots in some backwater town think he's a myth and are searching for the cure." Kol ignores the pointed glare Caroline shoots his way. "They are alarmingly good at reading maps."

"Oh my God," Caroline finally says, then promptly shuts up again. Kol smiles sweetly at her from across the room. Was she that far away before? Fuck.

"_Your smart mouth is what got you into this mess, is it not? You should take care not to worsen your predicament."_

"My apologies," Kol says again, with deep sarcasm. "Are you going to help or not?"

The queen laughs, a high pitched screeching sound that makes him wince. "_Why on earth should we help you, killer of innocents, monster of the east, Jack The Ripper? How many of us have you killed in your thirst for violence?"_

"I take it you didn't let us in here to play nice then," he deadpans, but he's already going through a list of all the things between them and the stairs. "This doesn't surprise me._"_

_"You are quite a skilled liar, Kol, son of Mikael," _she lilts, a spark of magic flickering between her fingers before growing into a flame. "_But you are not that skilled."_

There's a fireball growing steadily in her hand. Kol has an idea of where she's about to throw it, and wonders why every supernatural thing he encounters thinks it can kill him. He braces him as best he can with his limited movement and then—

And then Caroline opens her mouth again. "No offense, but if you're done flirting can we actually, like, talk about Silas?"

The queen's head whirls with such speed it almost looks like it's spun around. "_I beg your pardon?"_

Caroline parodies the movement of a shrug, her head bending minutely as her shoulders almost shake. "You aren't going to kill him, obviously."

_"And how have you drawn this conclusion?" _The queen sounds genuinely curious, as opposed to righteously offended, so Kol relaxes just a bit.

"If you were able to stop Silas, you would have done something about my friends already," Caroline says, point blank. "Instead, you're down here getting drunk and waiting for the apocalypse. Kol's the only one making any actual effort to keep the world from ending, which is why you let us in here. Besides, he's an Original; you can't kill him."

_"Clever girl," _the queen says, and the fire in her hands disappears in a puff of glitter around the same time Kol can move again. _"You spoiled my fun."_

"Like you didn't know he was freaking out," Caroline grins crookedly, playfully even. Kol wants to shake her for being so _stupid_, she could have gotten herself killed mouthing off to the queen like that, could have gotten herself _imprisoned_—

_"We know the location of Silas' headstone," _the queen says in a whisper, "_those who would seek it are nowhere near yet. So, as payment for our aid, we request you both do something for us."_

"Done," Caroline says, without even looking at him. Kol balks.

_"There are creatures out there who are devouring my courts, one by one. I wish for you to find them, kill them, and bring me their heads."_

"Cute," Kol mutters. Caroline digs her elbows into his ribs. When did they get next to each other? He needs to be more alert. "Alright."

_"Once you have slayed the monsters, we will tell you where Silas' headstone is. Should we feel those who search are uncomfortably close to him, we will act accordingly."_

"Uh," Caroline mumbles, "did she just threaten to kill all my friends if we aren't quick?"

"Essentially," Kol snorts.

_"You shall go to the place known as Philadelphia," _the queen carries on, like they aren't talking about her under their breath, and Caroline actually snickers next to him. Kol is trying to keep a straight face, given they aren't quite out of the woods yet, but it's proving to be a challenge. _"There, my court shall aid you."_

_"_Can we go now?" Kol says, bored. Caroline makes a strangled noise next to him and buries her face in her hands. "Clock's ticking and all that, you know."

The queen glares at him and taps one long nail against her thigh. _"Do you agree to these conditions?"_

"_Yes._" Kol stares at the ceiling in annoyance.

The queen's eyebrows quirk. She's probably just drawing this out to piss him off. _"Do we have your word?"_

"You have my word," Kol says tightly. "Now let's get on with it, shall w?"

_"We'll be waiting."_ The queen smiles, a slow, dangerous curl to her mouth that sets Kol's teeth on edge, and snaps her fingers. The room erupts into light, so bright and quick that he hisses and closes his eyes. Next to him, Caroline squeaks.

When the it fades, they're standing in the parking lot of their motel right next to the car. They both stare at it, blinking hard.

"Uh," Caroline finally says, "how the hell?"

"_Faeries," _Kol sighs, by way of explanation, disappearing into their room to grab his bat. He isn't worried about her running; she wouldn't make it very far in the half a second he leaves her alone, after all. When he comes back out, Caroline is already sitting in the car, slumped down in the seat with her legs stretched out on the dash.

He spends a minute taking in how relaxed she looks, the difference between this moment and four days ago when she'd been pressing herself against the glass like a frightened animal. She's still in the shorts she'd been wearing when he'd taken her. She has small ankles, he notes absently — small ankles and bony knees. Like a little girl.

Which she is, he supposes. She's barely eighteen. Still in high school. Just a kid.

_Nik, _he thinks, watching her fiddle with the radio, bright red nails tapping against a pale thigh, _you're a filthy old man._

He's sliding into the driver's side when she goes, "if the faeries don't want Silas to rise any more than you do, why do you have to do them any favors? Why wouldn't they just destroy the headstone?"

Having to explain this over and over is getting rather tiring. "Because they're _faeries_ and they like to play games, make people suffer, etcetera, remember?"

Caroline folds her hands in her lap, black elastic snapped around the delicate bones in her wrist, her spill of white-blonde hair tumbling over one shoulder. "I don't think we qualify as people."

Kol lifts a brow, amused. "Oh it's _we_ now, is it?"

She stares at her boots on the dashboard and he thinks, if she were capable of it still, she'd be blushing. "I'm _maybe_ being persuaded by all this supernatural craziness that there's more going on than anyone back in Mystic Falls knows."

"And we have a winner!" Kol slow claps, tone dry. "Someone give the girl a prize."

Caroline sighs, clearly exasperated, while he adjusts the rear-view mirror, but he doesn't even care because _finally _she's starting to believe him. The engine roars to life. She presses her forehead against the window and mutters, "is this what you feel like whenever I make fun of you?"

"Like what?"

"Angry and amused and impressed but mostly homicidal?"

"Essentially."

Caroline sighs again, then turns to him with a wicked smile. Her voice lilts a little when she says, "shall we go to the place known as Philadelphia?"

"And slay the monster who doth devour thy fey court?" Kol replies, toneless. Caroline giggles next to him. "Why not?"

"Oh, god, she really _is _going to set us on fire next time."

"Probably," he agrees, with almost a laugh, and drives.


End file.
